7
street roots
Nov. 8, 2013
It could
happen to
anybody
Life Thru My Eye$
by Shanna Robinson
Can you see life thru my eyes?
All she tells me is lies.
She is just trying to get well
To escape this hell.
She’s just another dope fiend
caught up in the mix
Trying to get a fix
Ceirah McCauley knew
homelessness firsthand, and
tells her story of the lessons
learned along the way
P H O TO BY GREG K O Z A W A
Ceirah McCauley stands outside her high school, St. M ary’s Academy
BY JASMINE ROCKOW
S T A F F W R IT E R
eirah McCauley witnessed
homelessness early in life. Her
grandfather worked for the Portland
Rescue Mission and her whole family joined
in. When she was in middle school, her
experience at the mission inspired her to
initiate her own fundraising projects for
people experiencing homelessness in
Portland and in Haiti.
Two years ago it became more personal.
She found herself homeless while attending
St. Mary’s Academy, a Catholic high school
in downtown Portland. She will be speaking
about her life at St. Mary’s Food for
Thought luncheon on Nov. 12. McCauley
shares some of her experiences during that
time.
C
J a sm in e Rockow: How did you end up
living in a homeless shelter?
C eirah McCauley: When I was 15 to 16,
me and my mom never got along. My
grandma sent my aunt to Harry’s Mother
for a day, and then my mom found out about
the program. It’s a teen homeless shelter.
She sent me there. It’s something you’re
only supposed to do one time, but she kept
on sending me to the homeless shelter. So I
was there four or five times, up to three
weeks each time.
J.R.: What was it like there?
C.M.: They’re extremely friendly and
really nice. Everyone there is young. So
that’s cool, but if you don’t want to be there,
you kind of shut everyone out and don’t talk
to people. And there’s people there that you
don’t know. I felt like, this isn’t an
environment that I should be in, because I
C.M.: Talking to the teachers, yes. I had
McCauley will be speaking at the St. Mary’s
Food for Thought luncheon, 11 a.m., Nov.
12th in the Hilton Grand Ballroom, 921 SW
Sixth Ave., Portland
never been in a situation like that. I have a
really big ego and so my pride gets in the
way, I don’t want people to know that I’m
not well-off. I think admitting it to myself,
that I needed somebody to help me was the
hard part.
First it was the crack
Then it was the black.
Motivation to live is what she lacked.
She let that shit beat her.
It took her to an early grave.
go to St. Mary’s and I am a good student.
I’m a good person. I just felt like I shouldn’t
have been in that situation so I was closed-
minded. At least the first time I was there, I
was very closed-minded. I didn’t want to talk
to anybody or communicate. But I opened
up a little bit more. They have counselors
there, and they helped me figure out the
issues that I had, find solutions to fix the
problems between me and my mom. I didn’t
like it, but they were really nice. It’s a good
place to be if you have nowhere else to go.
J.R.: Did your experience at the homeless
shelter change you?
Didn’t nobody care
My mother died out there.
J.R.: How did you keep your wits about
you?
C.M.: I ta lk ed to all m y fam ily m e m b e rs.
Everyone was there for me. At school my
friends helped a lot. People that knew my
life, I could talk to them about the situation
with my mom. And the teachers helped.
They understood that sometimes I would
need an extension on homework, or they
were there just to listen. So, having people
who wanted to listen to what I have to say,
because I didn’t have that at home. It helped
me stay stress-free and calm. At the end I
knew there was something good that was
going to come out of it.
J.R.: Was it hard for you talk to people
about the problems you were facing?
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JOINS
2013
COAT
DRIVE!
sition Projects needs
rm coats for winter.
You can help by hosting
a donation barrel.
Transition
Projects
They say the track
is where she was famous at.
It’s just another tragedy
She was caught up in this catastrophe.
Call or email for information
volunteer@tprojects.org 503.280.4741
C.M.: It changed my attitude a lot. I didn’t
have a very good attitude at all. So going in
there with a bad attitude and seeing that
people weren’t mean to me and seeing that
people were really nice, it changed my
whole perspective. You’re not going to get
anywhere with a bad attitude. Under
standing that helped me to be more humble
and nice to people. But it did change me a
lot, my attitude toward teachers, my attitude
toward my friends, adults. It made me
forgive my mom for the situation that was
going on. Just learning how to love her from
afar. So it ch an g ed m e, in a big way.
J.R.: What do you think is most important
for people to know about homelessness?
C.M.: That homeless people - they’re
people — not some people on a different
planet. A terrible experience doesn’t have to
happen for them to be homeless. A lot of
people think that it couldn’t happen to
them. I was one of those people. I thought I
would never be homeless and I would never
be on the street and have no place to go.
But in reality it could happen to anybody.
Just because you are homeless, it doesn’t
make you less of a person, it just means that
you are going through a hard time.
Can you see life thru my eyes?